Hey folks, I am Canadian that is looking to possibly import an MI5 but I figured I should find out a few things from you all that have been living with these phones for a while before buying.
Are there any hardware or software issues with the MI5 that I should be concerned about? I have a sony z3 compact right now and it's been infamous for vibration motors, headphone jacks, and screen failures. It also has no AOSP based daily drivers.
Development seems to be pretty active here, is that actually true? Are developers dropping off from this phone or is there still a steady amount of work being done?
From the lurking I've done it seems that unlocking, rooting and ROM installing is pretty easy. Are there any permanent dangers to doing these hacks (above and beyond the usual)?
I'm aware there is some camera quality issues on non-stock ROMs, is the camera still usable? How is the battery on custom ROMs?
Is there anything preventing this phone from being a daily driver when using a custom ROM like RR? Does the fingerprint sensor work on AOSP ROMs?
I am also aware of the radio bands the MI5 supports, I should be fine with that as my imported Z3 Compact has the same bands (as far as I can tell).
Edit: I was also wondering if the IR blaster works on custom ROMs!
Thanks for reading, answering and putting up with my ignorance. I'm just looking for some answers I couldn't find on this forum when I was searching yesterday.
Community is happy to help
1. Hardware wise you have to keep in mind the phone is fairly fragile. Low light performance of the camera is a bit poor. Audio out of the headphone jack isn't great on stock MIUI, but that can be fixed with Viper4Arise or any AOSP ROM. RAM management and general performance on MIUI is "ok" - but the phone is blazing fast on AOSP + CAF. There is no component that is prone to fail that I am aware of, but I have read of the occasional hard-brick triggered from nothing more than a reboot on custom ROMs - this can be solved by flashing stock ROM in EDL mode.
2. There seems to be a steady amount of development going on - we just got the drop on about 7 new ROMs in the last month. However, there are and have been developers leaving in favour of the One Plus 3, and development is only moderate compared to its forum.
3. It's fairly easy, but a bit frustrating getting the bootloader unlock from Xiaomi, as it usually takes about 5 days for the unlock to be approved and then 5 more days for it to actually work. There is also a possible driver issue on Windows which can prevent unlocking, so if you're stuck that's probably the case. Except for the above mentioned possible hard-brick there are no additional dangers, and dare I say less so than other phones I worked on.
4. The camera is usable on custom ROMs but considerably worse. Mainly there is a lot more noise in the photos, but detail remains high. Video recording seems to be broken on most AOSP ROMs, but alternative camera apps are apparently a work around. In my experience battery life is better on custom ROMs as they have functional Doze on Nougat, but not by much.
5. Fingerprint sensor works fine on custom ROMs, even better if you consider that you can wake + unlock your phone without pressing the button. There have been reports of some people experiencing slow fingerprint scanning on custom ROMs (3-4s). I use a custom ROM as my DD and I don't have any major issues except video recording that I haven't yet bothered to address.
I hope that this information finds you well. The Mi5 isn't perfect, but I'd be damned to say that a better phone exists for $200. The camera, battery life, performance, screen, audio, and design is good and there really isn't much to worry about.
xdadevet said:
Community is happy to help
1. Hardware wise you have to keep in mind the phone is fairly fragile. Low light performance of the camera is a bit poor. Audio out of the headphone jack isn't great on stock MIUI, but that can be fixed with Viper4Arise or any AOSP ROM. RAM management and general performance on MIUI is "ok" - but the phone is blazing fast on AOSP + CAF. There is no component that is prone to fail that I am aware of, but I have read of the occasional hard-brick triggered from nothing more than a reboot on custom ROMs - this can be solved by flashing stock ROM in EDL mode.
2. There seems to be a steady amount of development going on - we just got the drop on about 7 new ROMs in the last month. However, there are and have been developers leaving in favour of the One Plus 3, and development is only moderate compared to its forum.
3. It's fairly easy, but a bit frustrating getting the bootloader unlock from Xiaomi, as it usually takes about 5 days for the unlock to be approved and then 5 more days for it to actually work. There is also a possible driver issue on Windows which can prevent unlocking, so if you're stuck that's probably the case. Except for the above mentioned possible hard-brick there are no additional dangers, and dare I say less so than other phones I worked on.
4. The camera is usable on custom ROMs but considerably worse. Mainly there is a lot more noise in the photos, but detail remains high. Video recording seems to be broken on most AOSP ROMs, but alternative camera apps are apparently a work around. In my experience battery life is better on custom ROMs as they have functional Doze on Nougat, but not by much.
5. Fingerprint sensor works fine on custom ROMs, even better if you consider that you can wake + unlock your phone without pressing the button. There have been reports of some people experiencing slow fingerprint scanning on custom ROMs (3-4s). I use a custom ROM as my DD and I don't have any major issues except video recording that I haven't yet bothered to address.
I hope that this information finds you well. The Mi5 isn't perfect, but I'd be damned to say that a better phone exists for $200. The camera, battery life, performance, screen, audio, and design is good and there really isn't much to worry about.
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Thank you so much for the detailed response! Greatly appreciated!
This all is reminding me of the fun I had with AOSP ROMs back on my Galaxy SIII, happy thoughts! (I've been stuck in Sony's software for too long!)
What is CAF?
Is the IR blaster working in AOSP-based ROMs?
TheHow7zer said:
Thank you so much for the detailed response! Greatly appreciated!
This all is reminding me of the fun I had with AOSP ROMs back on my Galaxy SIII, happy thoughts! (I've been stuck in Sony's software for too long!)
What is CAF?
Is the IR blaster working in AOSP-based ROMs?
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Click to collapse
It's a pleasure
Well then it's good to know they run brilliantly on the Mi5 (buttery smooth UI, and I get good numbers on benchmarks as testament, see attached pics).
CAF is short for Code Aurora Forums, a collection of companies that merge their updated driver code with the vanilla AOSP code from Google.
I don't know if the IR blaster works on AOSP as I currently don't have any devices on me to test it with. I could try this weekend when I get home.
Edit: I've since arrived home and can confirm the IR blaster works on AOSP. I used Anymote if you're interested.
Alright guys, I spent a whole night researching and reading all the comments and discussions in a lot of threads related to Lenovo K3 Note and I just registered myself. Now, I want to install a custom rom and I found that the roms build by daniel_hk are the most reliable. But the thing is I'm not sure which one to install. LineageOS or SlimRoms or CarbonROM?
Please let me know which one is the best regarding Battery Back up, Ram and least lag ?
Also please post some significant Screen Shots of each roms Home, Menu, Settings, Notification Bar, etc.
So that I can see which one looks better for my taste.
And lastly please post all the fixes available and the best karnel.
I'm sure everyone in the K3 Note community will be helped through this thread.
Also I'm a total noob in this department so please ignore any of my idiocy as I don't know everything.
Thank you very much.
As far as I'm concerned, there are no stable Android 7.1 ROMs for this device yet. They all suffer from a serious flaw in one way or another - either video recording not working properly, video playback not working properly, poor battery life, misconfigured buttons or just random glitches and bugs that shouldn't happen, even after flashing fixes. I tried both Carbon ROM and LineageOS but I had to return to stock. Then again, the Stock ROM has poor memory management so it lags a lot. It's a shame, I've probably tried around 15 ROMs and the only one that was moderately stable was AOSP Vibe 6.0 which was a remixed china dev ROM but that has problems with internal storage glitches which causes all the userdata to be moved to another folder randomly (don't ask me why this happens, I really don't know but it is frustrating and happened twice, had to move all my files over again).
If you know of a fully stable AOSP ROM, even if it is 6.0, I'd be very keen to try it.
stephendt0 said:
As far as I'm concerned, there are no stable Android 7.1 ROMs for this device yet. They all suffer from a serious flaw in one way or another - either video recording not working properly, video playback not working properly, poor battery life, misconfigured buttons or just random glitches and bugs that shouldn't happen, even after flashing fixes. I tried both Carbon ROM and LineageOS but I had to return to stock. Then again, the Stock ROM has poor memory management so it lags a lot. It's a shame, I've probably tried around 15 ROMs and the only one that was moderately stable was AOSP Vibe 6.0 which was a remixed china dev ROM but that has problems with internal storage glitches which causes all the userdata to be moved to another folder randomly (don't ask me why this happens, I really don't know but it is frustrating and happened twice, had to move all my files over again).
If you know of a fully stable AOSP ROM, even if it is 6.0, I'd be very keen to try it.
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Thanks for the helpful information, but I know k3 note is yet to receive a fully stable custom rom. Knowing that I still want to install a custom rom by daniel_hk cause firstly the stock rom is very laggy and I cannot work with it and to my knowledge those three roms has received almost all the necessary and essential fixes already. for example the YouTube zoom thingy and the snapchat thingy got fixed I heard and many others. I think I can live with minor bugs like gps navigation not being able to be correct and **** like that. That's why I'm asking which one should I go with between these three.
Fair enough, but the ROMs from daniel_hk, whilst good, are definitely still in beta. YouTube zoom isn't fully fixed even if you flash the patch. If you go from 1080p to 720p, or 720p to 480p, you will get a zoom bug. 1080p videos recorded on the device do not play back in the gallery app or MX player, and the flashlight turns off by itself if you turn the screen off. Otherwise performance is good.
Edit: Carbon ROM is the only one with the latest fixes so I'd go for that.
stephendt0 said:
Fair enough, but the ROMs from daniel_hk, whilst good, are definitely still in beta. YouTube zoom isn't fully fixed even if you flash the patch. If you go from 1080p to 720p, or 720p to 480p, you will get a zoom bug. 1080p videos recorded on the device do not play back in the gallery app or MX player, and the flashlight turns off by itself if you turn the screen off. Otherwise performance is good.
Edit: Carbon ROM is the only one with the latest fixes so I'd go for that.
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So does Carbon Rom gives the best battery back up and uses the least Ram ?
chococheesecake said:
So does Carbon Rom gives the best battery back up and uses the least Ram ?
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Probably not, but it's still pretty good
use latest AOSP STABLE2 AKA MADos........ this is by far the most stable NG rom
btw,daniel has built latest lineage...with hdr fixed...which makes everything fixed......as daniel fixd the hdr..... now....mugik04 will build Latest RR with fix.......wait for that rom.....
Cpt.mactavish said:
use latest AOSP STABLE2 AKA MADos........ this is by far the most stable NG rom
btw,daniel has built latest lineage...with hdr fixed...which makes everything fixed......as daniel fixd the hdr..... now....mugik04 will build Latest RR with fix.......wait for that rom.....
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In the previous build of lineage, the hotspot issue still has not fixed. I've to configure hotspot fresh everytime if I want to connect it to my PC or other device otherwise it just shows connecting and never connects. Is there any specific fix for that?
svs36 said:
In the previous build of lineage, the hotspot issue still has not fixed. I've to configure hotspot fresh everytime if I want to connect it to my PC or other device otherwise it just shows connecting and never connects. Is there any specific fix for that?
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Not at the moment. And there are still issues with video playback, flashlight and camera video focus.
Lineage OS 14.1 is the one I've been happiest with. There are niggles and glitches, with battery being the biggest. On the whole I accept it's still work in progress. Stick to stock if you need stability.
Sent from my K3Note using XDA-Developers Legacy app
It depends on what you want, no custom nougat ROM has it all....
Having tested it all, I use Resurrection Remix 5.8.2 with March 5 security update.
Battery life is about 30 - 45 minutes less than Daniel's Rom but the smoothes of the performance is better.
#1 It has super fast charging (2180Mah)
#2 GPS locks in few seconds.
#3 Hotspot works once you on it off it and on it again.
#4 YouTube works perfectly
#5 Video recording does not crash at all, with or without flashlight. Footej camera works perfectly which is a plus for me, whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, periscope works well with the camera.
#6 it works perfectly with three different custom kernels I've tried on it. (I currently use the latest Daniel_hk kernel with voltage tuning & OC)
It serves me well and since I have 2 spare batteries I don't bother however, tweaking the kernel to powersave gives me more juice.
So, it depends on what is a deal breaker for you.
I've used 2 AOSP Nougat that are very good but since all AOSP Nougat Audio recording level is low, which is a deal breaker for me, I switched to LineageOS before hitting RR Nougat.
FYI Footej Camera only works because it records in 720p by default. 1080p recording is the problem.
By the way - I got fed up with bugs so I created my own debloated VibeUI ROW ROM with a nexus feel - so far it seems to work well and no signs of lag so far. I think the lag isn't caused by the core ROM, but the add-ons that Lenovo insist on adding. If there are no major issues I'll upload it by the end of the week
Bolumstar said:
It depends on what you want, no custom nougat ROM has it all....
Having tested it all, I use Resurrection Remix 5.8.2 with March 5 security update.
Battery life is about 30 - 45 minutes less than Daniel's Rom but the smoothes of the performance is better.
#1 It has super fast charging (2180Mah)
#2 GPS locks in few seconds.
#3 Hotspot works once you on it off it and on it again.
#4 YouTube works perfectly
#5 Video recording does not crash at all, with or without flashlight. Footej camera works perfectly which is a plus for me, whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, periscope works well with the camera.
#6 it works perfectly with three different custom kernels I've tried on it. (I currently use the latest Daniel_hk kernel with voltage tuning & OC)
It serves me well and since I have 2 spare batteries I don't bother however, tweaking the kernel to powersave gives me more juice.
So, it depends on what is a deal breaker for you.
I've used 2 AOSP Nougat that are very good but since all AOSP Nougat Audio recording level is low, which is a deal breaker for me, I switched to LineageOS before hitting RR Nougat.
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So if you needed to compare between LineageOS and RR Nougat, which one would be better in terms of smooth user experience and which one do you think has the lowest issues?
Also I do really need the most battery backup I can get.
stephendt0 said:
By the way - I got fed up with bugs so I created my own debloated VibeUI ROW ROM with a nexus feel - so far it seems to work well and no signs of lag so far. I think the lag isn't caused by the core ROM, but the add-ons that Lenovo insist on adding. If there are no major issues I'll upload it by the end of the week
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Please do, I'll check it out.
stephendt0 said:
FYI Footej Camera only works because it records in 720p by default. 1080p recording is the problem.
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Using premium footej camera on resurrection remix 5.8.2 March 5th security update Rom and it hasn't crashed over two weeks....
Bolumstar said:
Using premium footej camera on resurrection remix 5.8.2 March 5th security update Rom and it hasn't crashed over two weeks....
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It plays back 1080p recorded videos ok?
stephendt0 said:
It plays back 1080p recorded videos ok?
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Yeah, it does, smoothly without any glitch.
---------- Post added at 03:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:06 PM ----------
chococheesecake said:
So if you needed to compare between LineageOS and RR Nougat, which one would be better in terms of smooth user experience and which one do you think has the lowest issues?
Also I do really need the most battery backup I can get.
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Click to collapse
Both are the same core but RR has a little more customization and faster charging.
LineageOS by Daniel has the best battery backup time in CM based Roms. I've achieved 5hrs SOT with one AOSP nougat. It has low audio recording that's why I didn't continue.
You can achieve faster charging on Daniel's Rom with ultimate or Vince kernel. But it comes with dt2w and takes extra juice from the battery.
You should try flashing different Rom and check it out for yourself
Cpt.mactavish said:
use latest AOSP STABLE2 AKA MADos........ this is by far the most stable NG rom
btw,daniel has built latest lineage...with hdr fixed...which makes everything fixed......as daniel fixd the hdr..... now....mugik04 will build Latest RR with fix.......wait for that rom.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hdr has been fixed but with another hotspot bug replacing it
Did you face hotspot bug in RR 5.8.2?? Mugiks ?? Can you confirm? :/
Dear All,
I want to switch to AOSP from MIUI if possible. Are there any ROM's for Mi9 which doesn't have any bugs/functionality broken in AOSP. For me the camera, bluetooth, fingerprint, batterylife are very important.
AOSP based ROMs tend to be buggier than MIUI, you can either try yourself or browse each ROM's thread and see for yourself what issues people are reporting. Achieving 100% bug free is near impossible, today's OSes are too complex to be tested thoroughly with limitless configurations from one person to another. At least MIUI gives guarantee for conditions they test, most AOSP based ROMs only state "you tell me" in the bug section, showing that the ROM is lightly tested only.
Sadly there is no Bug free aosp rom and i think there will never be one. The Best you can do is using stock rom or xiaomi.eu rom and debloat it if you dont want/need miui stuff, there are two or three threads related to debloat.
I'm on extendedui everything looks functional so fare. Only have few problems with automatic brightness and stuttering Bluetooth streaming but didn't take time to try to fix this issue.
samsac said:
I'm on extendedui everything looks functional so fare. Only have few problems with automatic brightness and stuttering Bluetooth streaming but didn't take time to try to fix this issue.
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what about FOD?
It's working fine.
Hi, sorry if this was posted before, but with XDA moving to XenForo, search seems messed up, i did several searches and nothing comes up for "flicker" in this whole Pixel 4 XL Forum...
Has anyone else dealt with the low brightness screen flicker? I know it can't be just a bad phone, since i just bought three pixel 4 XL phones and they all exhibit this same behavior.
They are all running LineageOS (Official builds) so I don't know if this just affects the ROM or stock as well (although I've read it might affect stock phones too elsewhere).
It makes the phone pretty difficult to use in very low light situations, the screen will constantly flicker (more noticeable on darker backgrounds).
At first I thought it was just the Opera browser (as that's what I prefer), but it's operating system wide... Apps like "Darker" help.... because you can crank up the phone brightness and use a filter to dim the screen.... but it doesn't get the top & bottom menu/buttons, so those remain like spotlights in your eyes with that workaround.
Just curious if anyone knows whats up with this... it's the only phone I've ever seen this behavior on (and i've used Pixel 1,2,3 XL phones all with Lineage, and a myriad of other devices back in the Cyanogenmod days.... I've never seen a screen flicker issue like this).
Thanks for any help
edit / update-
the pro version of "darker" app works to fix this.... you crank the phones brightness to 100% and with the pro version you can dim the rest of the interface.
hopefully this helps anyone else suffering from this HUGE flaw (again i don't know if its just LineageOS or not, i didn't run stock on these except to unlock bootloader etc)
Hi,
I've seen it once and solved it by switching off smooth display. Not a real solution of course, but I never really noticed the difference between 90Hz and 60Hz anyway.
edwinek said:
Hi,
I've seen it once and solved it by switching off smooth display. Not a real solution of course, but I never really noticed the difference between 90Hz and 60Hz anyway.
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hmm.... you running stock i guess? i don't see smooth display option in lineage
Initial ProblemThe issue arose after having been on Pulkit's LineageOS (unofficial) for weeks. One fine morning i get the following message on my lock screen: Fingerprint hardware not available. To respect the rules of the forum and since I had already gone into detail about it here and found a temporary fix for it, I refrain from reiterating the same.
TLDRThe fingerprint hardware issue came up abruptly, wasn't fixed with changing kernels. Switched to a miui 14 port for a week, everything was working fine, switched back to an aosp rom (Voltage os), runs fine for a day and on the second half of the second day, the fingerprint sensor stops working again.
Help?I've scoured through the forum in search for a solution to this but seems like it's a truly unique problem x | Has anyone encountered something like this? Were you able to solve it or was there any permanent fix to this? I really don't want to have to use miui if I can help it and after having been on aosp roms for almost a year now, I absolutely can't daily drive miui T.T
Any advise or suggestions on the matter are really welcome!
Attaching the lock screen screenshot...